Inferno
by lukeyandlou
Summary: He was strong, he was fierce and he was built from fire. He had spent an entire lifetime building a wall to protect himself, a wall that fell in five minutes after his baby brother told him he hated him. ONESHOT


_**A/N: Quick one-shot due to a request by user No Guns Only Roses – also, shout-out to them for supporting me throughout all of my works! Hope you enjoy girl!**_

 _ **Pills and Potions will be updated shortly.**_

 _ **Prompt: Mikey tells Raph that he hates him.**_

 _ **Roughly based on something that once happened with me and my brother, and a conflict I had with myself last night.**_

 _Buzz. Boil. Burn. Burst._

It was an endless cycle that Raphael had been chasing for the past 18 years, and after so much running he found it hard to embrace the feeling of anything more. He saw this world as the inferno that he knew it was, every inch of the atmosphere blanketed in red and each footstep melting his skin into his bones.

He was a skeleton taking shelter in molded lava, and he was prone to consuming anyone close to him and enclosing them into his everlasting inferno.

Such a trap, however, was unique to Raphael when it came to the demons which his family faced. Or, so he thought.

He had always been fire, and although it protected him from the cold that haunted his older brother or the smallness of Donatello, the flames were burning out his veins and the smoke tended to cloud his judgement. His little brother, Michelangelo, was also a being born from warmth – but rather than of the depths in a volcano he had emerged from the sun. His face was kissed by the sunlight and the shine reflected in his eyes, and he had just enough warmth to hide his loved ones from the cold. He was warm and he was bright, and there was no spark in this universe which would taint him. Raphael had even believed that his toxic fumes would never damage his brother's rays of light.

Yet on this spring evening, the storm of the flames had proven him wrong. For finally, the ray of sunshine had burnt.

He didn't mean to, and he even hated himself for it, but Mikey just always pissed him off so bad just for being Mikey. It was an awful feeling to have with someone that he loved, and of course he knew it wasn't the kid's fault. He was a sinkhole with a melting core in the center, and he only rose his flames to protect his brother from leaning over too close and falling in. For someone who made himself from being as strong as the volcano which held him, that one blow was sharp enough to knock him down.

And to make it worse, it had all happened in the timespan of five minutes. Almost two decades of building this barricade had completely gone to waste in the timespan of five minutes.

 _It had already been a rough night._

 _The stars were sinking and burning into his skin, the streets craving for his presence to crawl among them. Casey had ditched him again to spend a night with a girl who he barely knew, and he knew that he was not safe on the streets on his lonesome. Or more so, the streets themselves were not safe, including every vermin that lingered there. At least he was responsible to make that decision before his venomous rages would get him into more trouble. He didn't even consider that it would get him in much more havoc at home._

 _He was already in a state of boiling, fighting his craving to bruise his knuckles and release the tension that paralyzed his sensibility. There was nothing that even instigated it, other than the natural surge of haunting that it always implemented on him at the worst of times. He had nothing to complain about, except for the fact that his father had been murdered two months ago._

 _With The Shredder gone, he and his brothers had ended a never-ending vendetta, and although he is eternally grateful that it is all over, he feels a bit of emptiness in the place where he usually felt purpose._

 _Raphael had always been a tough person, the kind that you would never catch crying and that you would certainly never catch off-guard. However, those who truly knew him were aware of the boy screaming from the inside, drowning in the lava and searching for some way out. Yet, now, the boy had finally accepted that he would be the lava forever._

 _This wasn't the first time that his father had been taken away. In the winter that he turned 17, he had convinced himself that he was dead after seeing his lifeless body thrown down a sewer pipe. Five months later, they had returned and so did their father. In the summer of last year, they had watched their father murdered in cold-blood, gutted before their eyes before everything that they ever knew was sucked away into the abyss. A martyr with a robot for a body had saved them with a time machine, and they were able to accomplish the miracle of bringing him back from the dead. Now, his father had been murdered again, gutted in the same way, an image that would forever be drilled in the he and April's heads. Now, they had buried him six feet deep in the ground, and there was no science to save them. He was dead, and he was never, ever coming back._

 _As one would expect, it had been eating each one of them to the core and was the cause of their screams at night, that night revisiting in nightmares every time they got their eyes closed. Raphael had not once let his brothers and friends see him cry about it. He had vowed to abolish any sign of weakness in himself for the rest of his life, and he decided that it would be easier for him that way._

 _It turns out, it was not._

 _Instead, he was a byproduct of suppressed trauma, and he was dying for an escape to crawl through and hide in. He felt kicked and small, and wished so dearly that he could cry and be held without anyone seeing – something he could do when his father was still alive._

 _Instead, he isn't, and Raph was on his own. He wasn't about to put that burden on Leo; he already had enough of a weight becoming responsible for the four of them all on his own. Donnie and Mikey were his younger brothers who looked up to him, and they should never see a role model broken down. Casey? April? Well, he didn't think that they needed a burden on them either. These times were coming for all of them._

 _Henceforth, Raph was trying to get used to feeling alone._

 _The depression had crafted into a monster beyond his control, absorbed by the lava and firing every fiber of his soul. He should have known better to come home that night. Yet, he did._

 _He ran through the lair instantly, making sure that no one was out before he let a tear crawl down from his eye. His instinct was to run to the dojo, hoping that his father's loving comfort could help fight off this demon and make a better mood of it after some advice with teatime. Whenever he lost control, his dad could help him take it away. Only his dad could keep him safe from this. Now, nobody can. He will never be free._

 _He ran into Splinter's old room, which he assumed was abandoned by the rest of his brothers in the wake of the tragedy. Instead, his blurry eyes came to an unexpected surprise. Michelangelo was sitting on Splinter's bed, reading one of Splinter's books, and drinking tea from Splinter's favorite cup._

" _What the fuck," Raph mumbled under his breath, the shape of his younger brother bolding in neon red. Mikey said nothing only looked up and gave Raph a small smile before sliding his attention back to the pages._

 _His silence only fueled Raph's vehemence._

" _What the fuck are you doing, huh?!" he raised his voice, forcefully shoving his little brother's shoulders._

" _When I was little, he told me that I would like this story," Mikey replies calmly._

" _What gives you the authority to come and touch his stuff, asshole? This isn't yours, you can't touch it! Nobody uses Splinter's cup, nobody! Give it to me!" he shouts. Although Mikey can recognize that Raph is caught in another blind rage, he has decided that he is tired of caring._

" _I had it first! Get out of here!" Mikey protests, tightening his grip on the cup. "This whole damn world isn't yours, you know!"_

" _You don't get to use it! Nobody does, you'll break it, just like you break everything! Why would I trust a fuckup like you to touch any of his things?" he rages._

 _Mikey laughs, he laughs in a way that is so cold to the warmth that he typically radiates. Mikey's laughter had always been a symbol of hope during the storm, a remedy to a bad day and a touch of warmth in the middle of winter. Yet this laugh was something that Raph had never heard before. It was so sharp, and so drilling and so unlike him that it almost completely knocked Raph back out of his rage._

" _That's a good one, big brother. Honest!" he says, continuing to laugh as he closes the book shut and turns back up towards his brother. It was so strange and abnormal that his rage had turned into anxiety, gazing in confusion and wondering what had happened to his baby brother._

" _I break everything?" Mikey says, barely audible and opaque enough to slide under the door and disappear with the wind. He closes his eyes for a second and smiles, and one second later his eyes hut open and finally the fire had taken over the sun._

" _I BREAK EVERYTHING?!" Michelangelo flies from place and shoves his older brother against the floor, his strength taking him by surprise as he is held against his will. "YOU'VE BEEN BREAKING EVERYTHING YOU TOUCHED FOR YOUR WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE! EVER THINK ABOUT THAT, HUH?"_

 _Raph's eyes widen in nervousness, not even knowing how to react to what was happening._

" _You ruin everything, everything since the day we were born! You destroy everything you touch and that's all you know how to do, and ever since we were little all you have ever done is belittle and humiliate me and bring me down. Do you know how that feels, to have your hero constantly treat you that you'll spend eternity being useless? Oh, that's right, you do. Leo and Splinter knew exactly what kind of person you are, and you've always been resentful to Leo because he's lovable. He doesn't destroy everything that comes near him," Mikey curses, his words full of acrimony and rattling down his older brother's spine._

" _Growing up, I always wanted to be just like you, and maybe that's why I'm such a fuck-up now. I know I am, I don't care what anyone says, but at least I'm not the biggest fuck-up in this family. I can't take it anymore Raph. I can't take the way you've always treated me and everything that's boiled inside me, all because of you!" tears drop aggressively down his cheeks, "I am not going to hold it in anymore. This was the last straw, the last time you're going to fuck with me because I'm not a little kid anymore. I don't have to take this."_

" _Mikey," Raph grasps for words, feeling like he was being sucked whole into a vacuum of some sort. "Calm the hell down man, it isn't that deep."_

" _Oh really? It isn't? I'm almost 17 now, and every last one of my memories is of you making me feel inferior. Not anymore!" he pounds his brother's chest and stands up, heading for the door._

" _What are you gonna do, just get up and leave?" Raph asks, quickly sitting up against the bed._

" _I'll do whatever the hell I want," his younger brother's voice loses volume, but still smacked with the same amount of poison. "Don't bother looking for me."_

" _You can't just-_

" _Jesus, I fucking hate you Raph."_

Michelangelo had walked out that door ten minutes ago now. Raph hadn't bothered looking for him.

Instead, he was curled up in a ball on the floor, the end of his father's blanket tucked under his chin. He had been left there paralyzed, no strength to muster up any words or any energy to move. For once, he was all washed out. The flames had settled and succumbed to their defeat, and the hallows in his soul were left completely empty.

He had a funny way of showing it, and that sure had come to bite him in the ass, but there is no one in the world that he loved more than his baby brother. Hearing those words come from his mouth was a bullet fast enough to rip into his spirit and bleed it out.

He had been too blacked out to cry, or to express any act of anguish, even if his heart was begging for just that. Finally, he felt the escape of another tear, and he felt a pound drop from the load on his back. Another tear followed it, and then another. Another and another, and then his eyes closed in absolute anguish as he let out on pathetic and woeful sob.

His heart broke for the longing for his father's comfort. His heart broke for the loss of the love he always had from his baby brother. His heart broke from the self-hatred eating out his brain, and the longing to finally escape this inferno.

He had lost time as he cried, his chest aching from the rough heaving and his throat blocking the pain coming from his tired-out lungs. He had to admit that he felt so much freer than he did before. The weight was not adding tension to his anger, but he still felt like a hallow shall losing its place in the breeze. He sat there and stared at the wall for the time being, and he didn't look up when he heard the door creek open.

He knew that it was him; he knew him well enough to know the way that his footsteps sounded and the way that he breathed when he was upset. He never thought that he would be too afraid to look up at his baby brother.

It appeared that he was not the only one who was trapped in a speechless void. It had been a few minutes that they both stood there, refusing to communicate in the slightest of ways.

"I'm sorry about what happened."

The silence had broken and the goosebumps crawled back up his arms, his heartbeat increasing. His little brother's voice was free of the anger, but still tainted in a tragic form of both sadness and fear.

No matter what Mikey said or thought about him, he would always be here to take care of him in the best way that he could. He couldn't handle hearing him sound this way.

"You were right," he replies, a hoarse whisper that sounded nothing like Raphael at all.

"I…I didn't mean for it to come out that way," Mikey says, his big sad blue eyes finally turning to face his older brother.

"I deserved it, and we both know that. I'm the one who should be apologizing," Raph sinks his head in defeat.

"Maybe," Mikey smiles weakly, sliding to sit beside Raphael. "It's just that I miss father too, you know. Just as much as you do."

"Of course," he replies immediately, "And the way I acted right now should never be forgiven. You are completely right to feel the way you do."

"I just didn't know how to feel anymore," Mikey says, his voice beginning to crack, "I had this big mass of fury inside of me and I didn't know how to get rid of it, and I've tried so hard to keep it hidden but then it hurt so much that I just had to give up."

Raph hesitantly raises a hand to his brother's shoulder, slowly laying it down and rubbing it in comfort.

"I miss him so much," Mikey cries, "I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe I could come in here and pretend he's still here with me, but then the anger was following and it finally took control of me and I wasn't strong enough to stop it."

"Guess you're more like me than we thought, kid," Raph chuckles ironically.

"I always wanted to grow up to be just like you," Mikey smiles, "Maybe, I sort of still do. I don't think that could ever change."

"You don't, trust me," Raph assures. "You're too bright to end up like someone like me. If you ended up the way I am, it would probably break my heart."

"You're not a bad person, Raphie. I didn't mean anything I said, and I know you don't mean anything you say like that either. Everyone has something to destroy, it's just part of being alive. I mess things up, so you do, so does Donnie and Leo and even Splinter. And everyone else in this world too. You may be a jerk sometimes, but so is everyone else," Mikey smiles, "You always have taken care of me."

"I don't understand what is wrong with me," Raph says, his eyes wielding with tears once more. "I hurt everyone I love and I can't stop myself, no matter how much I hate it. It makes me hate myself, not being able to control myself like that."

"I understand, and it's okay. I know that you love me, no matter what you say. Sometimes, you have to break down, and sometimes so do I. It's part of staying healthy, and now, we are going to be okay. We always are," Mikey reassures, his tone back to normal, calming and full of that endless Michelangelo love.

"I'm so sorry for the way that I've treated you Mikey. I love you so much, little brother. I am always so proud of you and everything that you do, and I could never live without you being a pain in my ass. I'm so sorry that I don't have a better way of showing that," he says, ashamed.

"It's okay Raph. I forgive you," Mikey smiles, leaning his head onto Raph's shoulder. "And I hope you can forgive me too."

"There's nothing to forgive, baby brother," Raph says, tucking his arm around the kid like when they were younger. "Now, I'll leave you to finish your book. As long as you tell me what it's about when it's over. That Splinter always did share the most fascinating stories."

Mikey jumps to his feet and pulls his brother up, both of them a little too awkward to physically embrace other than Raph leading him back onto the bed and placing the book back in his hand.

"Goodnight, Mikey," Raph says sullenly, turning to exit out of the door.

"Raph," Mikey cuts sharply, stopping him in his footsteps. "Can you stay here with me?"

Without answering, Raph turned around and lay onto the bed beside his little brother. After a moment, Mikey rested his head on his older brother's chest and Raph instinctively wrapped his arms around him, his eyes closing for rest as his brother continued reading.

"I love you Raph."

He smiled, the warmth growing amongst his heart, the feeling of happiness finally igniting his spirit.

"I love you too, baby brother."

Sometimes, he figured, an inferno can be a ray of sunshine too.


End file.
